Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hello, filth heads, We're doing a very
Speaker 1: special bonus episode coming out on a Friday, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to address something that's very important for the show,
Speaker 1: and that is the theme song. Which the theme song
Speaker 1: is obviously everyone's favorite part of American filth and it's
Speaker 1: perhaps the most remarkable podcast theme that has ever existed,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to go behind the scenes with
Speaker 1: the composer of the song, Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 2: Jesse, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hello, how's it going good?
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's such good news. And I think before
Speaker 1: we get into what Jesse ended up making, let's listen
Speaker 1: to the original demo of what I sent to you
Speaker 1: of what I thought would be an interesting way to
Speaker 1: start the show. Listeners, you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: hear some pretty notable differences between this original version and
Speaker 1: that what Jesse ended up coming up with.
Speaker 2: So here it is.
Speaker 1: This is the original thing that I had sent to Jesse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on.
Speaker 2: Okay, we got that. The bridge section is interesting.
Speaker 1: It was an interesting choice.
Speaker 3: Uh Yeah, the ding's my favorite part. I just love
Speaker 3: how it's more and more on hinge as it goes along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like this is like most of
Speaker 1: my own personal composition. Is it just it gets more
Speaker 1: and more mentally ill throughout the entire song. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to before you know we I feel
Speaker 1: like everyone's heard the actual official theme of the show,
Speaker 1: but I want you to when you first heard this
Speaker 1: version of the song, what did you think and why
Speaker 1: did you think? We're sort of the essential things to
Speaker 1: update and change to make it up perhaps listenable.
Speaker 2: I think maybe.
Speaker 3: That's the term we use. Well, there's some stuff I
Speaker 3: took out because it just made me laugh, and maybe
Speaker 3: that's not the goal of the song, like the which
Speaker 3: I just loved it, the club siren, the club Siren. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it made me want to do things in the
Speaker 3: future like add ridiculous electronics to it or already I
Speaker 3: already thought of a few different versions when I was
Speaker 3: working on this. But yeah, and then because I feel
Speaker 3: like you're kind of doing that a little bit with
Speaker 3: the hip hop drums, but also in a funny, simple beat,
Speaker 3: it was nice, and so I just took those out
Speaker 3: and I took what you had, and I some sad effects.
Speaker 3: I have a fancy air version of So I did that,
Speaker 3: and then I just cleaned up some harmonies, made it
Speaker 3: sound a little better and less ridiculous. But I saw
Speaker 3: the vision in there, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's great, that's great collaborations. At least you
Speaker 1: can you can see an impression of the thing that
Speaker 1: it should be at the end of the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think, Yeah, definitely the penny whistle sound that
Speaker 1: I was using towards the end of it, especially when
Speaker 1: I just basically I think I just made it like
Speaker 1: a third or a fifth, but then I didn't like
Speaker 1: actually assign the right. See, I don't know much about
Speaker 1: music theory because when I was when I used to
Speaker 1: go to band camp. One year I went to band
Speaker 1: camp and they had music theory classes and they were
Speaker 1: they had classes A through E, and E was like
Speaker 1: the lowest, and I got into E. And then the
Speaker 1: next year you would think I would have gotten better,
Speaker 1: but they actually had more people going to the CA
Speaker 1: so they had A through F and then I was
Speaker 1: put in F.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it got worse instead of going well exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's my theory background. But I do I do
Speaker 1: appreciate that you found a different penny whistle sound.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I just took what your you know, your
Speaker 3: third or your fifth harmony. And I don't have too
Speaker 3: too much music theory. I just have a good ear.
Speaker 3: So I just like, Okay, what's the next harmony? Okay,
Speaker 3: this is the wrong note. A lot of it is
Speaker 3: just like in the piano role, like moving note to note.
Speaker 1: H Yeah, But I think I also wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to you because I mostly wanted to do this bonus
Speaker 1: episode because you did a remix of the theme and
Speaker 1: I do think it's the song of the summer. I
Speaker 1: think it's giving brats. It's very brat summer. It's also
Speaker 1: giving rat summer, you know. And I think what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do with this one because my face, well,
Speaker 1: I will say the American filth theme song, I think
Speaker 1: it might actually come a second place if we're looking
Speaker 1: at all of TV and podcasting with the White Lotus
Speaker 1: season two theme song, right, I wanted something that was like, uh,
Speaker 1: it was the theme, but it just kept getting crazier
Speaker 1: and crazier, and then you think it's done, but then
Speaker 1: it keeps getting amped up. And so what was your
Speaker 1: sort of inspiration as you were making this remix?
Speaker 3: The biggest I mean, I definitely took what you said
Speaker 3: about the white hose thing to make it bigger and bigger.
Speaker 3: But the biggest thing is the tempo. It's at two
Speaker 3: hundred bpm, and so a lot of like EDM genres
Speaker 3: have a certain tempo, and if I cut that in half,
Speaker 3: like a one hundred, that's more like hip hop. So
Speaker 3: I tried to say what Joan I wanted to do,
Speaker 3: because I like house and techno were way too slow
Speaker 3: for the super fast song, so all I could do
Speaker 3: was drum and bass and ended up working beautifully with
Speaker 3: the rhythm. I think it's really funny, and it's even
Speaker 3: faster than normal drum based it's just ridiculous. And then
Speaker 3: at the end I just did like a power pop,
Speaker 3: like crazy hyper pop techno thing at the end because
Speaker 3: it was so fast and ridiculous. It reminds me of
Speaker 3: I don't know if I thought of this as I
Speaker 3: was making it, but the remix sounds like there's this
Speaker 3: DJ named kid Koala and he did a drum and
Speaker 3: based thing on the show Yo Gabba Gabba. This is
Speaker 3: what that reminds me of. It's like a really hyper
Speaker 3: drum and bass, but also like kind of kiddish and
Speaker 3: kind of Christmas y.
Speaker 1: Randomly, but you always gotta get a little bit of
Speaker 1: Christmas and things. Which that's fun too because when I
Speaker 1: was a college DJ, I was people would just call
Speaker 1: me Yo Gabba gabba, and so then I was what
Speaker 1: was I Y two g.
Speaker 2: DJ name to adapt Yo Gabba gabba.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2: So it's all full circle, you know what.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the American Filth theme song. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a metaphysical or sort of spiritual song. I think
Speaker 1: it will be played in churches one day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which version do you think the original?
Speaker 1: I hope. I don't want to toot my own horn.
Speaker 1: I don't want to siren my own club siren, but
Speaker 1: right maybe yeah. And so American Filth listeners, we're going
Speaker 1: to play the song to end this little bonus episode
Speaker 1: and so that you can keep replaying it again again.
Speaker 1: And if any of my listeners are DJs, stop listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I don't want DJ fans, But you
Speaker 1: can take this and you can play it at the club.
Speaker 1: So I think that's important. I think American Filth to
Speaker 1: help our promotion so that we can do sort of
Speaker 1: a second season, is we need to get the theme
Speaker 1: song at the club. So if you know a DJ,
Speaker 1: if you know someone at da club, please send them
Speaker 1: the song and we're gonna play it so that you
Speaker 1: can have the song of the Summer. And Jesse, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on to this bonus episode
Speaker 1: of American Filth and explaining your process, because this theme
Speaker 1: song is obviously one of the most important pieces of
Speaker 1: recorded music in the twenty first century. Thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: all right, and here's the remix.
Speaker 2: I have a good Friday.
Speaker 1: School of Humans.